


Most Quiet Need

by gabolange



Category: The Doctor Blake Mysteries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-18 21:45:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12396855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gabolange/pseuds/gabolange
Summary: Set in the near future, Lucien and Jean talk about the past.





	Most Quiet Need

**Author's Note:**

> Ficlet originally posted on Tumblr 10/6/2017. With thanks to the fandom for an exceptionally warm welcome and to pellucid for the read-through.

**

Later, after they are married, they whisper stories into each other’s shoulders, lips against skin, sharing histories neither is sure they want to hear. As Lucien shrugs her nightgown off, Jean protests that it is unsuitable to sleep in the nude, but they both know that it is for show. He rests his hands loosely under her breasts and she threads her fingers through his, holding him against her, waiting for whatever it is he might say.

Some nights, he tells her about Li, a happy child forever making up fantastic stories about princesses and tall ships. She says her sons were never like that: Christopher was serious and Jack was trouble, and their arguments always ended in fistfights.

Boys, Lucien says. His daughter twirled in the yard with ribbons in her hair, chasing butterflies and dreams, begging to be lifted onto his shoulders to try to touch the clouds. Little girls are full of wonder, he says. So are their fathers, she replies.

Yes, he says, because he still wants everything for the daughter he will never know. She just wants them all safe, their children, and as close as they can manage, in homes they can make their own.

She tells him about selling the farm and going into service, how it was for the best, everyone said so, especially her mother. You’ve got to make a living, Jean, as if she didn’t already know that the roof was leaking and the livestock barely fed. He says his father was so happy to have her, how he found her sensible.

What would he think now? she asks, bringing his fingers to her mouth to kiss them. He shifts her to her back and peers at her, serious but happy. Completely insensible to have married me, he says, before he untangles their hands to hold her to him.

Some days, when he has had too much to drink or nearly set the parlor on fire, she agrees that she has taken leave of her senses. No one in their right mind, she tells him, would put up with this. He kisses her, never contrite, and she makes him help with the mess. His hips bump against her or his shoulders do and she should scold him for being no use at all, but she likes his smile beside her. He gives it to her easily, more comfortably than the words he saves for the darkness, and she finds more reason in both than she ever imagined.

When she sent Christopher to war, he kissed her soundly but set his mouth in a line, an unfamiliar scowl on such a beloved face. She sometimes thinks she would still give anything to see him grin one more time, but she knows now too well that ghosts are better left dead. Mei Lin and Li just looked scared, Lucien says. I tried to pretend, but we were all so scared.

She remembers childhood frights, her sons’ and her own, the way the shadows in the corner of the room would dance with candlelight, the way she could run her fingers through Jack’s hair and quiet him with a touch. Nothing scares her now except the inevitable losses, the thought that one day she will fall asleep without Lucien’s voice muffled against her hair.

I wasn’t frightened in Changi, he says, that’s not it. You just try to stay alive, even though you don’t know why. You’re not hoping for a better future or to see your family anymore, you’re just trying to keep breathing. Some animal instinct, but I can’t explain it. 

Well, I’m glad for it, she says and draws him closer. 

They make love more nights than not, a fond newlywed habit she knows will fade with time and age. But now she revels in it, perhaps most in the moments when he uses her to hide from the shadows and she can shelter him within her and keep him whole. She cherishes every touch, every kiss, and if on good days his favorite thing is to tease her until she begs, breathing his name over and over, she doesn’t mind. 

He calls her darling and my love and Jeanie, endearments more suited to someone else, except that it is her breast under his lips and her fingers on his skin, and she slips and calls him Lucie and makes him laugh. 

He grins and asks, oh Jean, what would I do without you? In daylight she rolls her eyes. You wouldn’t have solved the case nearly as fast. You wouldn’t know anything about flowers. You would spend every night at the club paying for food that’s not half as good as mine. Quite right, he says, completing their script.

Curled against her in their bed, he presses his lips against her neck and asks in joy or desperation. She brushes his face with her fingers and says, I don’t know. I don’t know what I’d do without you, either.

**


End file.
